My stomach was in not entirely unpleasant knots.

Blooming heck!

Chapter Fourteen

Sadie’s Gift

Sadie

Hector dropped my overnight bag by the door in his bedroom, walked to the side of the bed and turned on the light.

His eyes came to me. “You need anything?”

I tried to think of something I needed.

Courage? A single personality that knew who she was and what she was about rather than multiple ones who had no idea what they were doing? The true ability to rewind my life and go back to the minute my father was shipped off to prison and move, right then and there, to Crete rather than waiting for my life to unravel and bring me to this scary pass?

“No,” I answered.

He started to empty his pockets, dropping stuff on the nightstand.

In a nervous panic, I leaned over and unzipped my overnight bag.

I grabbed my pajamas (white camisole, multiple pastels in plaid on white background drawstring bottoms, more of Buddy’s trip to Victoria’s Secret) and my toiletries case.

“I’m just going to use the bathroom,” I muttered to my bag and took off, out of the room, down the hall, to the bathroom.

Keeping my mind purposefully blank, I changed, pulled my hair in a messy ponytail on top of my head, brushed my teeth, washed my face and put on moisturizer (though, makeup-free was likely not the way to go for the evening’s festivities but, as I mentioned, I was keeping my mind purposefully blank thus, obviously, was not thinking clearly as was not thinking at all and instead acting on autopilot).

Then I looked in the mirror and allowed myself a moment to think about it in other words, I gave myself a pep talk.

“You can do this, Sadie,” I whispered in a barely-there voice so Hector couldn’t hear me talking to myself. He probably already thought I was totally crazy after my Ice Princess Diatribe that morning, I didn’t need him to hear me talking to myself, he’d have me committed.

I took a deep breath and continued my pep talk. “This is what normal girls do. They sleep with men. They enjoy it. Well, sometimes they enjoy it, if it’s good and the guy knows what he’s doing.”

I was getting off track so I blinked at myself in the mirror, shook my head and got back to the matter at hand. “Anyway, it’s natural, it’s right. And this is Hector and you’ve wanted this since the minute you saw him and I’m pretty certain sure he knows what he’s doing. At least I hope so.”

I stared at my image until I semi-believed myself. Then I pulled in my breath, straightened my spine, lifted my chin, turned out the light and went back to the bedroom.

Hector was stretched out on the bed on top of the covers, back up on all the pillows, legs out, ankles crossed. He was wearing his dark-gray thermal and plaid, cutoff pajama bottoms. The TV was on and a game was playing.

My heart skipped a beat at the sight of him relaxed on the bed. I decided not to think about it (again!) and took in the room.

The clothes hamper was now devoid of clothes. The bed was made and it looked like there were fresh sheets on it. Hector’s boots and shoes had disappeared. The closet door was closed.

He’d cleaned the room!

“You cleaned the room,” I blurted before I could stop myself.

Hector’s eyes moved from the TV to me. “No,” he replied. “This morning, when you and I left, we left my mother in the house.”

My eyes went wide. “Blanca cleaned your room?”

Hector’s gaze went back to the TV. “She meddles,” was all he said.

“But…” I started, stopped then finished, “you’re a grown man.”

He looked back to me and his mouth was doing that fighting-a-grin thing. “You wanna tell Mamá what to do? Tell her to mind her own business?” he asked.

I thought about telling Blanca what to do.

Then I thought about telling Blanca to mind her own business.

Then I shook my head fervently.

He let the grin loose then said softly, “Come here, Sadie.”

With nothing for it, regardless of my knotted belly, skipping heart and shaking legs, I went to the end of the bed and crawled up it, toward him.

When I got to within reaching distance, his hands were on me and he rolled me so my shoulder and head were resting on his chest again. He put his arm around my midriff this time and…

And…

And nothing.

I laid there. Hector laid there.

Still, nothing.

What was going on?

“Hector?” I called.

“Yeah?”

What did I say now?

Oh, blooming heck.

“I thought we were going to, um…” I couldn’t finish.

“We were going to. Until I asked you at Tom’s if you were ready to go, your body got rock solid and I knew you weren’t ready. So, we’ll wait.” His arm did a squeeze and his voice got softer. “I’m thinkin’ you need more time to get used to me. I’m okay with that, mamita, take all the time you need.”

Someone, please tell me that he did, actually, just say that.

Again, before I could stop myself, I lifted up, dislodging his arm and twisted toward him. He had the remote in his right hand resting on his abs. I slid it out, found the off button, twisted to the TV and flicked it off. Then I turned toward him again, reached across him and put the remote on the nightstand.

Then I pulled breath in through my nose, put my hand on his chest and looked in his eyes.

They were staring at me with that warm intensity.

I bit my lips, let them go and whispered, “I think I’m pretty used to you.”

I watched the warm intensity in his eyes turn fiery hot and without hesitation he did an ab curl, both of his arms went around me and he twisted, me landing on my back and him landing mostly on me.

His head was up and he was still staring at me.

“You sure?” he asked quietly.

No, I was not sure.

Still, I nodded.

That’s when he kissed me.

The kiss was hot, hard, wet and urgent.

His hands were not. They were on me, over my camisole, non-invasive, light and sweet.

The two put together were nice, my belly unknotted and happy tingles started to slide across my skin.

His mouth broke from mine and slid down to my chin, along my jaw and he touched his tongue to the skin just below my ear.

Then he whispered some stuff to me in Spanish, I didn’t understand any of it except maybe one word, “preciosa” (which could only mean one thing, couldn’t it?).

At his whispering in my ear, his hands still light on me, the tingles graduated to shivers.